Robert Louis Singletary shot Kinsley White and her father William White, police said. (Mugshot of Singletary: Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office; screenshot of Kinsley White: WSOC)
A neighbor accused of shooting a girl and her father turned himself in to deputies on Thursday, according to police.
The shooting happened south of the Gastonia city limits in North Carolina on Tuesday, according to local cops. Robert Louis Singletary, 24, allegedly injured Kinsley White, 6, with bullet fragments, sent her dad William James White to the hospital in critical condition, and grazed her mother Ashley Hildebrand with a gunshot. He shot at a fourth person, Derrick Kenneth Prather, but he missed, police said.
This sparked a search for the suspect. Gaston police said that Singletary turned himself in to deputies in Hillsborough County, Florida, on Thursday. He is held without bond at the Falkenburg Road Jail and a fugitive hearing is set for this Thursday, online records show.
Several young children had been playing basketball when it rolled into Singletary’s yard on Tuesday, according to allegations reported by ABC affiliate WSOC. Neighbors said he was new to the area and often got angry at the local kids. This time, an incensed Singletary allegedly shot at a neighbor, then came back. William White reportedly tried to draw gunfire from the children toward himself to protect the kids. Singletary allegedly shot him in the back and also injured Kinsley.
“He looked at my husband and my daughter and told them, ‘I’m going to kill you,’” Hilderbrand told WSOC.
“We don’t even know the man,” Kinsley said.
The child voiced shock at what happened.
“Why did you shoot my daddy and me?” she said in the WSOC interview. “Why did you shoot a kid’s dad?”
In North Carolina, Singletary faces four counts of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon.
Singletary was previously charged in December with striking his 21-year-old girlfriend in the back of her head with a mini-sledgehammer.
The young woman said she felt dizzy and disoriented and could feel heavy bleeding from the back of her head.
According to WSCO, citing police, Singletary didn’t allow the victim to leave the apartment where he allegedly assaulted her until she had cleaned up all evidence of the attack. She then drove herself to the hospital and called authorities. Singletary was charged with assault with intent to inflict serious injury, kidnapping, and communicating threats.
Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this report.
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